Bush Afraid to Travel Abroad — With Good Reason

By Ray McGovern - Posted on 09 February 2011

America's Stay-at-Home Ex-President

By Ray McGovern

As the news broke on Saturday that former President George W. Bush had abruptly canceled his scheduled appearance this week in Geneva to avoid the risk of arrest on a torture complaint, my first thought was — how humiliating, not only for Bush but, by extension, for all Americans.

However, those who might have expected Bush to be down in the mouth and sulk about the embarrassment were disabused of that notion as the TV cameras caught him and Condoleezza Rice -- his former national security adviser and Secretary of State -- in seats of honor at Sunday’s Super Bowl in Dallas.

Doomed to become America’s first better-stay-at-home former president, Bush could still take consolation in getting scarce tickets to big sports events – he also attended high-profile Texas Rangers baseball games last year – and he can expect to hear some folks cheer for him, so long as he stays in Texas.

I imagined myself with advanced training in the intelligence collection technique called speed lip-reading, enabling me to decipher from the TV screen what Condi Rice might be saying to her beloved mentor:

Not to worry, Mr. President, as I told those upstart students at Stanford when they kept asking about waterboarding, “By definition, if it was authorized by the President, it did not violate our obligations under the Convention Against Torture.” Period. End of story.

Remember, Mr. President, it was Richard Nixon who pronounced the principle of presidential impunity in his famous statement to interviewer David Frost, “When the president does it, that means it’s not illegal.”

Oh, the pardon? Well, you’re right. Nixon did need to be pardoned, but no worries for you on that score. What luck that we were able to get Obama and Eric Holder to agree to ride shotgun for us, if anyone summoned the temerity to bring charges against us for torture.

And, you can always use the perfect squelch — the one you used so effectively in talking about waterboarding in that TV interview with Matt Lauer on Nov. 8. You remember, you countered by saying, “The lawyer said it was legal.” As a last resort, we can always blame it on Al Gonzales and the gaggle of lawyers who gave us legal cover.

Your reply to Lauer was masterful. Glad we rehearsed that one so thoroughly. Just keep remembering not to say that you told the lawyers what you wanted them to say. Then we’re home free.

Speaking of home free, as Ollie North once said, “Is this a great country, or what?” Sure is nice not to have to worry, at least here at home, about anyone holding us accountable for what you called “alternative procedures” for interrogation; or for my asking George Tenet to orchestrate demonstrations of those procedures every couple of weeks in the White House Situation Room.

By the way, we just got a thoughtful thank-you note from George Tenet, who must be the most grateful of all ex-CIA directors. He wanted to remind us of an important anniversary coming up. No, besides Ronald Reagan’s birthday.

You may recall that it was on Feb. 7, 2002, that you signed that action memorandum saying the U.S. did not have to abide by the Geneva Conventions in how we treat al Qaeda or Taliban prisoners. Tenet says that he and his boys know they owe you big time for putting down in writing the protection that made them comfortable going to the dark side.

I sure wish that other countries would simply read that carefully worded memo. Then, they might become as understanding as Obama and stop hinting that we are in some legal jeopardy. Staying safe at home is nice, but I really miss traveling abroad. And I’m about to forfeit thousands of frequent flyer miles.

Anyhow, I must remind you, Mr. President, you’re not the only one grounded for fear of being detained abroad. I can’t begin to tell you how many speaking offers in Europe and elsewhere I’ve had to turn down.

It’s hard, embarrassing even, but you are right to decide to err on the side of caution. That way you are sure to avoid confrontations not only with the local gendarmerie, but also with people like those ubiquitous, obnoxious women from Code Pink who seem to spring up from nowhere with handcuffs.

Ubiquitous? Oh, that means they seem to be everywhere. Obnoxious you know, yes?

A recent Secret Service bulletin said some of those Code Pink women are even in Tahrir Square helping to give our friend Mubarak a hard time. And remember how they went around to bookstores and libraries last fall, putting your excellent book in the fiction or crime sections?

Code Pink is now doing the same thing with Rumsfeld’s book, and even inserting a bookmark that says: “WARNING: This Book’s Author is a War Criminal.” Heh, heh; poetic justice for Rumsfeld. Serves him right. I’m told that he has a bunch of nasty things to say about the rest of us.

I suspect Rumsfeld may catch more flak than you did in promoting your own book. Remember how those Code Pink activists challenged him the first time he came out of hiding in May 2009 and showed up at the White House Stenographers, sorry, Correspondents Dinner? There they were, introducing him as a war criminal. Frightful people.

I’ve also been thinking of the very close call Rumsfeld had in Paris in October 2007, when he had to make a mad dash for the airport, upon learning that someone (I think the Center for Constitutional Rights was behind it) had filed a Convention Against Torture complaint against him with the Paris Prosecutor.

I mean, if I had my way, I’d tell Tenet's friends at Langley to round up the lot of them — Code Pink, Center for Constitutional Rights, whatever — and drop them off at one of the old black sites. I tell you I’d do it, if we were still in power. All I’d need, of course, would be the President’s okay, preferably in writing — like that action memo of Feb. 7, 2002.

Don’t much care for Rumsfeld, but glad he beat the gendarmes onto the plane in Paris and is now, like us, safe at home. That episode could have ended very badly, setting an awful precedent. Luckily, you avoided that kind of scene by canceling out of Geneva.

“Canceling out of Geneva.” Has a familiar ring. That’s essentially what your February 2002 memo did, canceling the Geneva Conventions on treatment of detainees. That’s how you authorized what followed, how you made it legal.

End of imaginary report based on lip-reading Condoleezza Rice’s Super Bowl conversations with George W. Bush.

Now Dead Serious

It was White House Counsel, Alberto Gonzales, who released to the press Bush’s Feb. 7, 2002, memo. It was spring 2004, and the timing suggests that one main purpose was to deflect early reports about abuse of detainees. Gonzales may also have been motivated by a desire to get onto the public record documentary proof that it was the decider, not the lawyers, who signed that memo.

In any case, it turned out to be the smoking gun on Bush’s torture policies. In it Bush wrote: “I determine that common Article 3 of Geneva does not apply to either al Qaeda or Taliban detainees.” Article 3, which is common to the other Geneva conventions on prisoners of war, bans “torture [and] outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment.” The conventions permit no country to unilaterally exclude anyone from Geneva protections.

But Bush did so, while hiding the substance of his memo behind words that the White House lawyers thought would make Bush look humane. Bush’s memo said detainees should be treated “humanely” and “in a manner consistent with the principles of Geneva,” but added the caveat, “to the extent appropriate and consistent with military necessity.”

In other words, Bush and his high command could decide whether “humane” treatment would be granted or not. If they saw a “military necessity” for, say, waterboarding somebody 183 times, then they could so order.

That, of course, is not what Geneva demands; there is no way to square this circle. Bush's memorandum violated international law, creating the giant loophole through which Rumsfeld and Tenet drove the Mack truck of torture.

Bush Memo “Opened the Door”

After a lengthy investigation, the Senate Armed Services Committee concluded in December 2008 that it was President Bush himself who, by the Executive Memorandum of Feb. 7, 2002, “opened the door” to the abuse that ensued. Here is Conclusion Number One of the committee report:

“Following the President’s determination, techniques such as waterboarding, nudity, and stress positions … were authorized for use in interrogations of detainees in U.S. custody.”

The direct result was torture and sometimes murder of detainees at Guantanamo in Cuba, Abu Ghraib in Iraq and Bagram in Afghanistan. One chilling phrase used by young soldiers describing treatment of detainees at Guantanamo was “rape by instrumentality.”

When Congress attempted to draft legislation prohibiting this practice, Bush’s White House lawyers objected citing their worry that such legislation might subject practitioners to prosecution under state and federal criminal statutes. Practitioners!

You may remember that one of the Bush administration’s favorite slogans was that evildoers must be “brought to justice.” Now, the world will be watching to see whether the evildoers of the Bush administration meet justice in the months and years to come.

Meanwhile, Bush, Rice, the lawyers and the hands-on “practitioners” of torture had best stay close to home. After all, some countries might not think that it’s such a “quaint” idea to enforce international law. They might even believe in the old American principle that “no one is above the law.”

Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington. He spent almost 30 years as a CIA analyst and Army infantry/intelligence officer and is co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).

. . . yet, International War Criminal Ehud "Mr. Thermite" Barak is welcomed in the USA???

(clipped headline and article from Activist Post)
"Israel's Barak in US for top-level talks - Israel's Defence Minister Ehud Barak is to hold a series of top-level talks in Washington later on Wednesday which Israeli media say will centre on the unfolding crisis in Egypt."

This ol' fool from North Cackilacki finds this "Special" visit very interesting in the wake of Hillary "Brave New World" Clinton's recent State Department round-up.

(clipped headline and article from 31Jan11 AP/Google News)
"Clinton convenes mass meeting of US ambassadors - Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is convening an unprecedented mass meeting of U.S. ambassadors. The top envoys from nearly all of America's 260 embassies, consulates and other posts in more than 180 countries will be gathering at the State Department beginning on Monday. Officials say it's the first such global conference."

So, rather than being immediately arrested for War Crimes for his role in Israel's 2009's "Operation Cast Lead", not to mention being arrested and questioned for his role in the TERRORIST ATTACKS of 9-11 . . .

(clipped headline and article from Christopher Bollyn)
"How Ehud Barak Pulled Off 9-11 - Ehud Barak, Israel's defense minister, has been in the United States for a week of meetings and speeches. He is, in my opinion, the key suspect of being the mastermind of the false-flag terror attacks of 9-11. I am providing this brief article to explain how I think he did it."

(clipped text from above Activist Post article)
"Barak . . .is expected to meet US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Defence Secretary Robert Gates and National Security chief Tom Donilon, his office said. He is to brief Congress on Wednesday and later meet with senior White House adviser Dennis Ross alongside a number of other top defence and intelligence officials, his office said, without saying what would be on the agenda."

While Barak is here, he also plans to do a little "9-11 Damage Control" at the the United Nations apparently. . . ;-)

(clipped text from above Activist Post article)
"Media reports said he will also meet UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in New York."

I guess that Zionists Susan Rice and the U.N. "Kosher" Watch haven't been able to put the lid on that whole Richard Falk "problem" to Ehud Barak's satisfaction, kidz . . ;-)

(clipped headline and article from 27Jan11 Veterans Today)
"Why the Fuss? Bizarre Call to Arms Against UN Rapporteur Richard Falk for Alluding to Gaps in the 9/11 Official Story . . . In other words, was Falk attacked so strongly to try to make people fear suggesting in public even the possibility that the official story is problematic?"

So, I guess WE THE PEOPLE . . . of THE WORLD can expect to see another round of damning press releases from the Dark Side of Ban Ki-Moon . . . ;-)

(clipped headline and article from Prison Planet)
"Dark Side of Ban Ki-moon And The United Nations Shines Through As It Condemns Richard Falk For His Views on 9/11 - . . . Five days later, on January 25, the ever-compliant figurehead of the UN issued a statement, saying: 'I want to tell you, clearly and directly. I condemn this sort of inflammatory rhetoric. It is preposterous – an affront to the memory of the more than 3,000 people who died in that tragic terrorist attack.'"

Funny, this ol' fool thinks letting the real murderers go free, covering up their tracks, playing "whack-a-mole" on anyone that seeks the TRUTH, using the event to launch of series of illegal wars, and justifying a bunch of pre-written draconian unconstitutional laws is "an affront to the memory of the more than 3000 people who died" in the false flag event of 9-11. . .

What is that old adage in criminal investigations???

"The criminal always returns to the scene of the crime."

I hope you kidz in Washington, D.C. and New York give Mr. Ehud "Mr. Thermite" Barak a good patriotic welcome . . . ;-)

After all, who deserves a War Criminal's fanfare more?

Well, maybe George "Mission Accomplished" Bush . . . ;-)

"I pulled out my Stage Coach Times
And I read the latest news
I tapped my feet in dumb surprise
And of course I saw they knew
The Pinkertons pulled out my bags
And asked me for my name
I stuttered out my answer
And hung my head in shame
Now they've found me
Well I won't run
I'm tired of hearing
There goes a well-known gun"
- "Ballad Of A Well-Known Gun" by Elton John/Bernie Taupin

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